Burden Without Backlash? Trust and Procedural Fairness in Response to Welfare Compliance Demands

To access public services, citizens often navigate complex administrative requirements. These demands are introduced to ensure program integrity and maintain public support for welfare policies, yet they may create barriers for those in need. While prior studies on policy feedback and administrative burden show that burdensome encounters can reduce trust among welfare recipients, less is known about how the general public reacts to compliance demands. Stringent requirements may signal that programs are protected against fraud, potentially increasing perceptions of fairness and trust among non-recipients. We further hypothesize that compliance demands have positive effects on these outcomes when: 1) individuals are non-recipients rather than recipients of welfare services, and 2) the welfare recipient is perceived as undeserving. To test these hypotheses, we conducted a pre-registered vignette survey experiment in Denmark with a sample of the general public (N = 1,624) and welfare recipients (N = 409). We find that stringent compliance demands increase perceptions of fairness but do not affect trust in government among the general public. We find no support for the moderation hypotheses. Our findings challenge prevailing understandings of administrative burden, showing that stricter requirements can enhance perceived fairness without undermining trust—regardless of welfare experience and deservingness perceptions.